Behavior: Being on time
Experience
I’m sometimes on time and not and thought this activity could provide insight on what factors keep me on time or derail me. Below I note all the events that I had to be on time for – meetings, trains, classes – and what happened then.
Monday, Jan 16 (event / intended start time / actual start time / analysis)
- Coffee with friends / 3:30pm / 4:00pm / My friends and I insisted on finishing a 1000 piece puzzle the night before, so we left the house for lunch at 2pm instead of 12pm. This delayed lunch meant that meeting up for coffee also was late. An interesting piece of luck is that although I was 30 minutes late, all my other friends were at least 20 minutes late – without notice from any of us, and without any of us having a reputation for being late.
- Dinner with other friends / 5pm / 5pm / I walked with a friend from the previous event to the next one. The previous event had almost no structure – just happily aimlessly walking around. So it wasn’t too hard to extricate ourselves and leave.
- Catching the Caltrain / 7pm / 6:50pm / I misunderstood the leaving time and thought I had to leave really early – so even though I caught the wrong bus and waited extra long for Uber, I still arrived early 15 min early. Somehow, I misread the Caltrain schedule and realized that the next train was leaving at 6:50pm (not 7pm) so I arrived early enough that I caught the right bus.
Tuesday, Jan 17
- Class / 9am / 9:10am / I drove to class…then couldn’t find a parking spot and went to the wrong side of Main Quad at first.
- Class / 12:15pm / 12:20pm / I bumped into a friend who needed advice.
- Pick up a scale from a friend / 6:30pm / 10pm / I had a last minute change in plans.
- Club meeting / 7pm / 6:45pm / I arrived early on purpose to prepare for the meeting.
Seems like I tend to be between 30 minutes early to 30 minutes late…
Models
Fishbone Diagram
Connection Circle
Next time
This experience made me realize that I think more about what makes me late rather than on time. In terms of being on time, I realized that looking forward to an event and, critically, intentionally arriving early – typically because I need to prep in advance for it – are key to being on time. Although I don’t mind being late (because my friends are late lol) to certain events, I would like to use the idea of intentionally arriving early so that I can stay on time for classes. Perhaps I can prepare a question or two I’d like to ask the instructors before classes start, especially for classes I have trouble getting to on time. Perhaps I can camp out my favorite work spaces right outside my favorite classrooms and work there so that I’m already at the event hours or minutes before it starts – perhaps a 10 minute task I have to regularly use my computer for (writing emails? inputting hours into my work timecard?), and doing those tasks before class starts at/next to the classrooms.
